Stability of activation, while it may be necessary for information to become available to consciousness, is not sufficient to produce phenomenal experience. We suggest that consciousness involves access to information and that access makes information symbolic. From this perspective, implicit representations exist, and are best thought of as subsymbolic. Crucially, such representations can be causally efficacious in the absence of consciousness.

When words are read, the visual cortex is activated, independent of whether visual or motor associations are elicited. This word-evoked brain activity is significantly influenced by semantic meaning. Such effects occur very early after stimulus presentation (at latencies between 80 and 130 msec), indicating that semantic meaning activates different neuronal assemblies in the human visual cortex when words are processed.

Syntax is better viewed as the dynamics of a morphogenetic field on a semantic universe of “content” words. This may take widely different forms, making the acquisition of any language by an aspiring speaker an entirely new experience. The existence of an underlying “universal syntax” might be illusory.

An alternative to Aggleton & Brown's interpretation is presented suggesting that the perirhinal cortex and hippocampus mediate different attribute information, but use the same processes, supporting the idea of parallel processing based on attribute (visual object and spatial location) rather than process characteristics (item recognition and familiarity).

Recent investigations have explored how large-scale systems in the brain operate in the processes of retrieving knowledge for words and concepts. Much of the crucial evidence derives from lesion studies, because word retrieval and concept retrieval can be clearly dissociated in brain-damaged individuals. We discuss these findings from the perspective of our neurobiological framework, which is cited in Pulvermüller's target article.

Aggleton & Brown predict that recognition and episodic recall depend on different brain systems and can thus be dissociated from one another. However, intact recall with impaired recognition has not yet been demonstrated if the same type of information is used in both tests. Current evidence suggests that processes underlying familiarity-based recognition are redundant with processes underlying episodic memory.

Not only do grammars have the dual structure that Clahsen discusses but the lexicon contains atomic, unanalyzed items, which would be still more mysterious for single-mechanism models. Forms of be in modern English are listed atomically and this is not a simple function of their morphological richness or of the fact that they move.

A model of when and where saccades are made necessarily incorporates a model of the “When” and “Where” of target selection. We suggest that the framework proposed by Findlay & Walker does not specify sufficiently how (and by what means) selection processes contribute to the spatial and temporal determinants of saccade generation. Examples from across-trial priming in visual search and from the inhibition of temporally segmented distractors show linkage between the processes involved in computing when and where selection operates, so that there is cooperation rather than competition between so-called Where and When pathways. Aspects of spatial selection may also determine the remote distractor effect on saccades. The detailed relations between the processes involved in selection and saccade generation may be best understood in relation to detailed computational accounts of the processes.

O'Brien & Opie believe that some mental representations are evoked by stimuli to which a person is attending, and other mental representations are evoked by stimuli to which attention was not paid. I argue that this is the classical view of consciousness; yet this is the view which they wish to challenge.

The element of truth in behaviorism tells us that some versions of a radical neuron doctrine must be false. However, the representational nature of many mental states implies that neuroscience may well bear on some topics traditionally addressed by philosophers of mind. An example is the individuation of belief states.

Recordings of neuronal activity in the monkey superior colliculus (SC) suggest that the two apparently independent effects of a visual distractor on both temporal (latency) and spatial (metrics) saccade parameters may be the result of lateral interactions between subpopulations of saccade-related neurons located at different sites on the motor map of the superior colliculus. One subpopulation is activated during the planing and initiation of a saccade; the other is activated by the appearance of a distractor. The inhibitory or facilitative nature of this interaction depends on the distance between the distractor and the target and is consistent with the complex pattern of intrinsic and commissural collicular connections.

When referring to the organization of the mental lexicon, the distinction between combinatorial rules and lexical listing for regularly versus irregularly inflected words should be further developed to account for subregular morphological processes. Moreover, the distinction may be more or less appropriate depending on the lexical component under consideration, and it is subject to interplay with other factors that are relevant in determining the representational structure of the lexical system.

The important Hebbian architecture for language may not be the phonological networks of perisylvian cortex, but rather the semantic networks of limbic cortex. Although the high-frequency EEG findings are intriguing, the results may not yet warrant a confident theory of neural assemblies. Nonetheless, Pulvermüller succeeds in framing a comprehensive theory of language function in the literal terms of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.

Fornix problem: Why do lesions of the fornix, which connects the hippocampus (HF) to the medial mammillary nucleus (MMN), often cause no deficits in tasks severely affected by lesions of HF or MMN? Solution: The direct HF feedback to antero ventral (AV) thalamus (MMN ⇒ AV [hArr ] HF), which is blocked by MMN lesions but not fornix lesions, is sufficient for nonscene-relevant consolidation.

Gold & Stoljar reveal that adherence to the radical neuron doctrine cannot be maintained via appeals to scientific principles. Using arguments from (1) naturalism and materialism, (2) unification, and (3) exemplars, it is shown that the “mind-is-brain” materialism explicit in the trivial version of the neuron doctrine ultimately suffers the same theoretical fate. Cognitive science, if it is to adopt an ontology at all, would be better served by a metaphysically neutral ontology such as double-aspect theory or neutral monism.

A pure vehicle theory of the contents of consciousness is not possible. While it is true that hard-wired tacit representations are insufficient as content vehicles, not all tacit representations are hardwired. O'Brien & Opie's definition of stability for patterns of neural activation is not well-motivated and too simplistic. We disagree in particular with the assumption that stability in a network is purely intrinsic to that network. Many complex forms of stability in a network are apparent only when interpreted by something external to that network. The requirement for interpretation introduces a necessary functional element into the theory of the contents of consciousness, suggesting that a pure vehicle theory of those contents will not succeed.

I argue that the trivial neuron doctrine as characterized by Gold & Stoljar is not trivial; it appears to be inconsistent with property dualism as well as some forms of functionalism and externalism. I suggest that the problem is not so much with the particular way in which Gold & Stoljar draw the distinction as with the unruliness of the distinction itself. Their failure to see this may be why they misunderstand the views of the Churchlands.

Pulvermüller's attempt to link language with brain activity appears to depend on the assumption that words have context-independent meanings. An examination of everyday talk contradicts this assumption. The meaning that speakers convey depends not only on word content, but also, and importantly, on the location of a “word” in an ongoing sequence of turns in talk.

Hungarian data provide support for differences in processing regular and irregular morphologies. Stronger priming was observed with “regular” stem types compared to “irregular” ones. Use of nonwords showed a reliance on the grammatical structure of the nonword: Analogical extension of “irregulars” can be observed only in “root” contexts; in other contexts all types were largely overregularized.

We are largely in agreement with the Findlay & Walker model. However, they appear to dismiss the role of covert spatial attention in tasks in which people are free to move their eyes. We argue that an account of the facts about the perceptual span in reading requires a window of attention not centered around the fovea. Moreover, a computational model of reading that we (Reichle et al. 1998) developed gives a good account of eye movement control in reading and would be unable to do so without relying heavily on covert attention.